#99. Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967)

If you know anything about me you know race relations and civil rights are kinda my “thing.”

Part of me feels like my viewing experience of this movie, centered around the varying reactions of the families and friends of a mixed-race couple who are planning to get married, will always be diminished by the fact that I don’t get the full “shock value” that must have come with it in 1967. However, I live in Spokane Washington, and I see how people here STILL react to interracial unions, so I kind of feel like 2010 Spokane is like, say 1967 San Francisco.

I know that this movie could not have plausibly been made if certain parts of the narrative had been TOO extreme, for instance, if the white girl had brought a black fiancé home to Alabama to meet her chronically unemployed parents and had to persuade them over the course of a two-hour movie that they should give their blessing to their marriage, it would have been absurd outside of the context of a Disney film. For this reason, “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner” is a little disappointing, since the parents have, according to the Katharine Hepburn character, raised their daughter to know that all people are the same, so why would it be such a big deal for her to be marrying a black man if her own parents are Civil Rights supporters?

Therein lies the true artistry of the film. It makes you reexamine your prejudices and think to yourself “would I be so tolerant if I were in the same position?” Obviously for some people that is an easier question to answer than it is for others, but that is truly clever storytelling. Character development is unrealistic and corny if it is TOO much of a stretch, and this movie had the perfect balance of that. Also, I have no doubt that at the time this movie was released it was largely preaching to the choir.

"There'll be 100 million people right here in this country who will be shocked and offended and appalled and the two of you will just have to ride that out, maybe every day for the rest of your lives. You could try to ignore those people, or you could feel sorry for them and for their prejudice and their bigotry and their blind hatred and stupid fears, but where necessary you'll just have to cling tight to each other and say 'screw all those people!'" (Matt Drayton, "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner"

For all the great advancements this movie made and for all the ground it broke, there is one thing that bothered me incessantly about it when I observe it through the filter of time. While we don’t get much time to get to know Sidney Poitier’s mother in the movie, it is made very clear that Katharine Hepburn is, well Katharine Hepburn, she is a strong, stubborn and opinionated career woman (who also pulls off one of the greatest “HELL YEAH!” moments in cinema in the scene where she calmly and subtly fires an obnoxiously racist employee) yet she still has a very Stepford Wife gender role in this film. It may have been sleight of hand, or it may have even gone unnoticed at the time, but the roles of both mothers still have to take a backseat to their husbands. The two scenes that depict this the most are:

1) When Katharine Hepburn’s character tearfully confides in the family friend/Priest she is distraught that her husband is about to tell the hopeful couple that he will not give his blessing to the marriage. Her approval of the union is seemingly completely irrelevant and she doesn’t even make a whole-hearted effort to state her case to him, rather she submissively cries and slinks off after he voices his disapproval.

2) After all the parents have had a chance to converse without their children it is made clear that both sets of mothers want to see the marriage go ahead and both fathers do not. When Sidney Poitier’s mother informs him of this, he is shocked to learn that, just because the girl’s father is against the marriage, her mother isn’t. Also, by having both mothers be in favor of the union rather than one mother and one father for example, it kind of inadvertently gives the impression that women are so lovesick and romantic that only the men are being practical and raising concerns about a hasty, controversial marriage.

For as much as I looked forward to watching such an envelope-pushing movie, it wasn’t everything I hoped it would be. That’s not to say it was a bad movie, it was a fantastic movie, but I just don’t feel like it crammed racial equality down the audience’s throat as much as it should have, of course, this is coming from someone with a very overstated racial agenda in life, so in defense of this movie, nothing would have completely satisfied me short of Sidney Poitier shouting at Spencer Tracy “Look cracker, I’m marrying your daughter like it or not!” But that would have made for an awfully short movie in addition to probably setting back the portrayals of African American characters to the time of Al Jolson Blackface performances.

#100. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

From the description alone I had very, very low expectations for this movie. James Cagney in an overly patriotic musical propaganda piece about George M Cohan "The Father of Broadway" combines at least 3 things I don't like.

However, my favorite genre is the Bio-Pic... oooh dilemma!

Now, for those of you who don't know, biopics in the early days of cinema were significantly more kind to the subject than they are now. Anyone who has ever seen and cringed at "The Babe Ruth Story" with William Bendix or "The Spirit of St. Louis" knows what I am talking about. You will seldom get a great biopic of somebody's life when they are still alive and can influence the picture (not that it is always great when some ambitious director hijacks someone's bones for the sake of a good story- "Finding Neverland" and "The Buddy Holly Story" taught us that).

The thing that surprised me the most about this movie was the fact that the script seems to have been written mostly by comedy writers. Despite the fact that it was released just months after the U.S. entered into World War II and the subject matter dealt with a man who wrote flag-draped patriotic anthems and proudly touted his "Born on the 4th of July and named after George Washington" status, it was a surprisingly light-hearted film.

I also thought it was a very ambitious undertaking to try and combine biographical films and musicals, although it IS about a Broadway performer, so in some ways it could be argued that this would be the only way to approach this film. The creativity lies in the fact that, like most musicals, the director didn't attempt to use songs to tell the story, but rather integrated all the songs the same way they would have been presented to an audience, in the context of a performance.

One of the most impressive aspects of this movie was the way the process that goes into the creation of a song was depicted. I don't know how accurate it was, but I am a music man first and a movie man second, so I was also sucked in by this aspect of the narrative.

"My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you and I thank you" (George M. Cohan, "Yankee Doodle Dandy"

I actually experienced belly laughs at this film, especially since finding humor in topics like alcohol abuse, child discipline and gender roles is a fine line to walk and I would love to have seen how it was received in the 1940's. If the rest of the movies on this list that I have low expectations for entertain me the way this one did then I am in for several pleasant surprises over the next year. I want to go out and learn more about George Cohan, and I have no doubt that, as an accurate depiction of a man's life, this movie probably falls extremely short of reality, but some of the best bio-pics I've seen are guilty of this ("Chaplin" and "Cobb" come to mind). All in all, it was everything I expected it to be, overly patriotic, syrupy, watered-down and completely sanitized the life of a showbiz family, but for anyone who is not a George Cohan expert, you will find yourself saying no fewer than a half dozen times, "Oh my God, he wrote that song!?"

After watching this movie, my wife and I were both dismayed to learn that there is a statue of George M. Cohan in Times Square and we have never visited it... Sounds like as good an excuse as any for a trip to New York again ;)

100 Years-100 Movies: Intro

Here's the story:

In 1998, the 100 year anniversary of the advent of motion pictures, the American Film Institute polled 1500 actors, film critics, directors and Hollywood dignitaries as to the 100 greatest films in the history of cinema.

Once the list was finished, a lengthy TV special was produced to unveil the honorees. Once in awhile various cable channels will rebroadcast the special and on a particularly slow night my wife and I stumbled upon in. After watching for a while we were appauled at how many of the movies we hadn't seen. We talked casually about the possibility of someday watching all the movies on the list but never really discussed it after that. Last week we revisited the idea and decided to just jump head first into it. I've ordered the first 3 on the list and we are getting started this evening.

A little more background:

1) We have decided the list is best watched in ascending order from #100 to #1 (the one exception will be "The Godfather" 1 & 2- as watching part 2 first seems counter-productive, thus the two films will switch spots in the rotation.

2) Even if we have seen the movie before we are watching again, there are VERY few films on the list that both of us have seen anyway.

3) We are going off of the original 1998 List rather than the revamped 2007 list for several reasons:

A) We didn't like the criteria for the updated list, specifically the need to include films based on the merit of technological advancement and box-office success.

B) We also felt that factoring in a movie's performance at awards shows diminishes the point of the original list, particularly when you look at how many films and stars have been notoriously snubbed by awards shows in recent years.

C) We didn't want to watch "Toy Story."

The blogging process is something I decided to do just for my own reference but also because a few people have expressed to me that the idea might be interesting, especially with a lot of film buffs out there who are interested in cinema but don't have the kind of free time to commit to a project like this. The goal is to be finished with all 100 movies within one year. A pace of 2 movies per week is very realistic and still gives some breathing room to accomodate busier weeks.

I don't want this to be me reviewing 100 movies, and anyone reading wouldn't want that either. Rather I would just like to talk a little bit about them, my initial expectations of the films and how they did or didn't live up to them and why I believe the movie made the list. I think it could possibly be interesting to anyone who is as fascinated with motion pictures and history as I am and when I say I "invite" you all to follow my blog and read about my progress I actually mean "beg."

I know I am looking forward to this endeavor, I am looking forward to being cultured and I am even looking forward to getting over some of my cinematic prejudices, as I have to watch a lot of movies I swore I'd never watch on this list ;)
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"This is my life! It always will be!... Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!" (Norma Desmond, "Sunset Boulevard")